I
came into Multicultural Folktales II this semester with an "I don't like
folktales” chip on my shoulder. What could all those goofy stories I had heard
as a kid have to say to me today?
What
I have found out is that the stories I heard as a kid had their basis in the
"real" folk and fairy tales, but they were pasteurized and
homogenized. Now that I am finally finding the real meat and potatoes of the
fairy tales and studying the cultural contexts in which they arose and evolved,
I understand how much power they really have.
Reading
Jack Zipes book "The Irresistible Fairy Tale" I found, "stories
work with people, for people, and always stories work on people, affecting what
people are able to see as real, as possible, and as worth doing or best
avoided." Stories can change the world! I
think that the magic of story is it causes people to listen and remember, and
what could be more important when you are trying to communicate?
My
challenge these days is joining with my fellow alumni of Paolo Soleri's
Arcosanti to finish the Arcology and populate it with a vision of a way of
living that has never been seen before except in Paolo's philosophy. There are
7000 alumni from back in the late 60's when the city in the desert began. Three
hundred of us just came together to celebrate Paolo's life, and our challenge
now is to listen to each other and to craft the story for the world that will
get our Arcosanti completed and populated. Story might help us do that.
Phyllis
Ralley
Arcosanti
class of 1975
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